Tuesday, May 31, 2016

A few weeks ago, KTRK (ABC 13) out of Houston ran a couple of stories I helped them put together (here and here) about the infamous Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, which served as the inspiration for the Broadway musical and subsequent film, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In addition to the new segments, KTRK's producers dug up old broadcasts from 1993, the 20th anniversary of the closure. This is the final installment of the five broadcasts, and I'm offering my thoughts, two decades removed.

This one starts with a recap of the previous videos. Nothing really new here, although there's a rare photo of Austin County Sheriff Truman Maddox at the 1:06 mark (Sheriff Maddox didn't take Zindler's media circus as personally as Sheriff Jim Flournoy did, which is probably why few people remember him today. But Sheriff Maddox was a colorful character in his own right). There's also a brief image of La Grange clergy in the recap, which I'm assuming was included in the fourth retrospective segment, which was cannibalized for the new "43 years later" segment. Obviously, KTRK did not believe enough material remained to make it worthwhile to post the original Zindler piece online, but I find that reasoning disappointing, from a historical perspective. And I have to say, using Charles Durning's "Sidestep" dance number as filler is entertaining, but doesn't bring anything new to the subject. Of more interest is Governor Briscoe's press conference. Bits and pieces of it exist here and there, but I've not been able to find a complete recording of it. The next segment is interesting. It shows Zindler visiting the (closed but still-intact) Chicken Ranch in December of 1974 after it'd been closed for a year. The caretaker made the KTRK crew leave the property as soon as he realized they were there. I like the fact Zindler's puffing on a big cigar and gets a closeup shot of his finger ringing the doorbell. That's a nice touch. Of course, their next stop was downtown La Grange and a fateful encounter with Sheriff Flournoy, one of several events which guaranteed the Chicken Ranch a kind of bizarre, pop culture immortality. Oh! And at the 2:56 mark there's a sign on a gate that says "Closed due to complaints of Marvin Zindler." A screen grab of this image can be found online, attributed to the Chicken Ranch, but this is in fact the sign at the lesser-known Wagon Wheel brothel outside of Sealy. Finally, I find it amusing that Zindler ends this retrospective with a mini-rant about the fact that many people have made money off The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, but that he didn't share in the profits. This is a wee bit disingenuous, as the whole scandal boosted Zindler's profile (not to mention lifting KTRK out of its perennial third-place finish in the ratings) and--if it didn't make his career, certainly cemented his place as a Texas celebrity. Zindler did profit, and profit greatly, but his benefits accrued indirectly.
Watching these videos makes me a little melancholy. Not for the closure of the Chicken Ranch, mind you--that's ancient history and there's no turning back the clock. No, I'm frustrated that the station manager at KTRK I spoke with five or so years back chose not to make any of this archival footage available to me. Zindler's original film broadcasts were stored in a warehouse outside the city, and there was no viewing system set up, etc., which made it impractical, if not impossible, to get me access to them. Clearly, these retrospective videos show that the station did have a significant portion of those broadcasts archived for easy access. It would've been nice had I been able to review and incorporate them when researching my book, but I guess it was easier just to put off the peon writer with a partial truth. The reporters there I've worked with have been great, mind you. I just wish the station had been more generous back before they needed something from me.
Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now listed on both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com for pre-order.
Title:Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little WhorehouseAuthor: Jayme Lynn BlaschkePublication Date: August 1, 2016ISBN: 978.1.46713.563.4

Friday, May 27, 2016

I'm not the world's biggest AC/DC fan, but like pretty much everyone else who grew up in the 80s, I've got a soft spot for the durable rockers. Believe it or not, my favorite song of theirs (not counting "Big Balls," because that's more of a four-minute junior high joke than a song) is "Money Talks." I was friends with the music director (or whatever you call it) of a College Station radio station when it switched formats to AOR back in '90-'91. They were shook up the generic pop radio scene in town and garnered a lot of initial success by playing actual rock. Amusingly enough, when "Money Talks" came out, it was conspicuously absent from their playlist--although the video was on heavy MTV rotation and KLOL out of Houston played the dickens out of it. I asked why they weren't playing it, and was told by the music director he'd begged to play it, but the station owners were "afraid" of AC/DC. Apparently, they believed there'd be riots in the streets and devil worship and all manner of hell unleashed if they allowed such a thing over the airwaves. Nevermind that various AC/DC songs were played regularly at Olsen Field during Texas A&M baseball games... In any event, a few months later, about the time the song had peaked in popularity, I heard it enter the station's rotation. That's always amused me, and pretty much proves that money does indeed talk.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

A few weeks ago, KTRK (ABC 13) out of Houston ran a couple of stories I helped them put together (here and here) about the infamous Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, which served as the inspiration for the Broadway musical and subsequent film, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In addition to the new segments, KTRK's producers dug up old broadcasts from 1993, the 20th anniversary of the closure. I was a young reporter in Temple at the time, so this is the first I've ever seen the broadcasts. I'm going to share them here and then offer my thoughts, two decades removed.

I just love the footage here of clients waiting to access the Chicken Ranch. These clips were filmed by cameraman Frank Ambrose, who was hiding (but not very well) in the back of an "undercover" van he and Larry Conners had driven to La Grange. Now here's where fiction and truth come together: Herb Hancock, who was an assistant AG under John Hill, approached Marvin Zindler on his own. John Hill had no idea he'd done so, and Hancock worked hard to keep it that way. Hancock, for his part, had been convinced by others that the Chicken Ranch was a nexus of organized crime and corruption in the state. Remember that the internet and Twitter and instantaneous social communication didn't exist back then. Heck, long distance telephone calls were generally avoided because of the extra cost involved, so there was no easy way to do quick, wide-ranging fact-checking or investigation of sources. The facts presented to him were either accepted or rejected depending on the perceived veracity of the source, and in this case Hancock had no reason to believe he was receiving biased information (which he was).
Aside from that, it's great to see Larry Conners get some screen time. He's the overlooked hero (or villain, depending on your point of view) in the great Chicken Ranch investigation. Conners did almost all of the actual investigative leg-work, while Zindler presented the material as only he could, in his distinctive, bombastic way. I love Conners' interview with Sheriff Flournoy. Flournoy answers pretty much every question in a mumbling, monotone growl. I imagine he'd have preferred to have been just about anywhere else at that point in time. And it's true that Colonel Wilson Speir, head of the DPS and Texas Rangers, called Flournoy and had the Chicken Ranch temporarily closed down during politically sensitive times, such as elections. That may be hard for people to believe, but Texas really was a different world from what we're used to today. Zindler teases an interview with madam Edna Milton in the next installment, but that's not available online--mainly because KTRK used a bunch of that footage earlier, in ABC13 Revisits the Chicken Ranch 43 Years Later.
Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now listed on both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com for pre-order.
Title:Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little WhorehouseAuthor: Jayme Lynn BlaschkePublication Date: August 1, 2016ISBN: 978.1.46713.563.4

Friday, May 20, 2016

Weird. I haven't heard Eddie Money's song "Walk on Water" in years, maybe a decade or more. But I was running errands late yesterday and suddenly, bam!, the song was playing in my head, full throttle. It wasn't even raining, the radio wasn't on and I was actually thinking about loquat trees at the time, so I have no clue what triggered it. The human mind (mine at least) is strange.

Monday, May 16, 2016

I started my office build-along project a couple of weeks ago, and last week I gave an update on my progress. A week's passed, so that means we're due for another update, right?
For those of you playing along at home, you'll remember my mentioning the first cabinet I purchased for this project was a corner piece from McCoy's that was on clearance. Turns out it wasn't spruce, but birch. Which is another way of saying it's a pain-in-the-ass. That's it below. Deceptively innocent-looking, innit? Well, it was a display model, which means it was filthy. I mean, really, really grimy. So much so that I broke out the acetone to wipe it down after using an air compressor to blow the biggest accumulations of dirt and dust away, and again after I wiped it down. Even after the acetone, it still looked questionable. Part of this is due to UV damage--you can see in the photo where the door that was covered by a price sheet is still bright and clean and the surrounding wood has yellowed. Not good. I sanded and sanded and sanded some more, and only evened the coloration out slightly.

As for the stain... well, there's a reason why I didn't share pictures of the birch. See, the birch has grain in the wood, clearly visible grain, but apparently not the type that likes to differentiate itself via Minwax wood stain. Both applications of Special Walnut and Dark Walnut resulted in vaguely blotchy patterns. Worse, in a handful of places the stain puddled of something even after I wiped it away, resulting in what looked like splattered water droplets on the wood that (naturally) wouldn't sand away. Ditto for the cabinet frame. The door doesn't look so bad in the photo below, but trust me, it's awful.
Cutting my losses with that mess, I moved on to the application of polyurethane. At the old house, I used sanding sealer to finish my book cases, and was very happy with that finish. I've studied up on woodworking since then, and learned that polyurethane is a more durable topcoat than sanding sealer. Sadly, the two are not compatible, so I couldn't layer polyurethane atop a nice, thick layer of sealer. The big difference, as I understand it, is that sealer has an additive that causes it to puff up (relatively speaking) evening out the surface and filling the wood grain so that it may be easily sanded to a slick, smooth gloss. Polyurethane doesn't puff up, but is still easily sanded--so multiple coats are needed to achieve the same degree of smoothness.

Another problem with polyurethane is that it is bubble prone. If said air bubbles persist when it dries, that a rotten little disfigurement to the finish. So the best way to prevent this is to brush on a thin coat and brush slowly. Then brush over it again to remove lingering bubbles. Then blow on those nasty little ones that persist, hoping that is good enough. Once the polyurethane dried--at least four hours according to the can, but a couple of days in my case--lightly sand away the imperfections and irregularities. I used 400 grit sandpaper. And by sand lightly, that's exactly what it sounds like. The polyurethane is indeed soft under sanding and can be stripped away with any degree of aggression. I took a little strip in my hand, ran my fingers over the wood to find rough patches, then brushed the sandpaper over a couple of times. That was usually enough to leave a coat of dust and a smooth surface underneath.

Once I'd sanded everything, I got a damp towel and wiped everything down. I can assure you, despite sanding lightly, there was a lot of dust. This isn't something you want to breathe in, either, but fortunately it's a clingy kind of dust that doesn't seem prone to going airborne. Once I got everything cleaned up nice and pretty, I applied a second coat of polyurethane. I have to admit I cheated a little on the cabinet doors--the inside, which won't be exposed to as much wear and tear, only got one coating.

I found the second coat much more forgiving to work with--or not, as the case may be. In many cases, the first coat had rendered the surface pretty smooth to begin with, and the second coat took the cue. In those cases I dispensed with the sanding, although there were rough patches and bubbles here and there to work into submission. The birch door was an exception. It didn't want to get smooth, and after sanding, no matter how much I wiped, I couldn't get the dust cleaned up. Instead of merely blotchy, it was streaky and blotchy. I briefly thought of breaking out the acetone again, but a quick check of the interwebz informed me that the acetone would strip the polyurethane away entirely. Yikes! In the end, I got it cleaned enough to apply a second coat of polyurethane and then followed that up by lightly sanding with 600 grit paper.

The end result, above, is a bunch of pretty cabinetry that's missing doors. But it stacks nicely, doesn't it?

Another lesson learned from the book case build a decade ago is that it's best to remove all the hinges from the doors before staining. Yeah, that worked out about as badly as it sounds. But the downside of this hard-won wisdom is that once all the stain and polyurethane has dried, the hinge hardware must be replaced. Turns out this is a terribly tedious affair. But, once all is said and done, it does foster the illusion that I actually know what I'm doing. Whoda thunk it?

Friday, May 13, 2016

I heard Cyndi Lauper's "Money Changes Everything" the other day, and thought immediately that I'd go with it for today's video installment. But then I got to thinking, and was pretty sure I'd already run it in the past. So I did a search, and turned up nothing on my blog. Not only that, but I turned up exactly zero Cyndi Lauper videos out of something like a decade of doing this. For real? I have a hard time believing that. Lauper's one of those singers I like much more now, in my dotage, than I did in their heyday. I really love her cover of "I Drove All Night" and coulda sworn I ran that one as well, but I can't find it ("She Bop" either). "Money Changes Everything" is probably my second favorite of hers--it's got a little more angst and grit than most of the other work off her first album, but is still kinda catchy. Anyway, enjoy Cyndi in her flying garbage can!

Thursday, May 12, 2016

I started my office build-along project a couple of weeks ago, and I'm afraid I've fallen silent since. That doesn't mean I haven't been working on it, but I've got a bunch of irons in the fire and documenting and writing everything up takes a bit of time. I'll try to do better in the future. Promise.
I mentioned before how I made countless errors when building my bookshelves in the office at our old house, and there's one area where I'm learning from those mistakes. The cabinets I'm using to form the base of the bookshelves--like those I used last time--were never designed to go on the floor. They're actually hanging cabinetry, which means the top is the same depth as the bottom. There's no upside-down or rightside-up, as they're identical in either orientation. This wasn't a big deal in my old office, as it was carpeted. I just cut the footprint into the carpet and installed the cabinets/bookcase over the vapor barrier. Trouble came when I replaced that old carpet with laminate flooring. Take a look:

This is the problem: The low clearance of the cabinet doors. Yes, they still open and close fine, but there is zero clearance beyond that. Unlike carpeting, however, laminate and hardwood flooring needs about a quarter inch gap space because it flexes depending on temperature and humidity. If you don't leave that gap, it can buckle--not nice. Normally, the unsightly gap is hidden by molding, but there's no room for a quarter-round or even a shoe base.
Note that I deliberately chose to not get kitchen cabinetry, with its elevated footing, because selection is limited and the sizes available wouldn't fit my available space without a lot of hassle. So, what could I do to solve this problem? Simple--elevate my cabinets' bases.

I bought a 1"x4" board of aromatic cedar from McCoys. Why cedar? Well, I'm partial to the wood because it's easy to work with. Also, I hate insects that try to make a meal of books, and figure the cedar will offer at least a minimal level of deterrence. Not that we have an infestation at our house, mind you, but I've seen a silverfish or two over the past year, and that's one creepy-crawly that's not terribly easy to control outside of turning one's home into a toxic waste dump.

After cutting the board into 1" strips on my table saw inherited from Grandpa Fritz, I used my mitre saw to chop those strips into 30" segments for the horizontal cabinets and 9" segments for the vertical end cabinets. So far, so good.

Next, I decide which is going to be the top and which is the bottom. Doesn't make any difference, really. Then I laid down a thick layer of Titebond II wood glue (Titebond III is better, but costs significantly more).

Next, I align the 1" strip along the glue line, making sure it is flush with the front of the cabinet. I drill a pilot hole through the cedar into the cabinet (I guarantee either the cedar or cabinet would split without the pilot hole--no thanks!) then nail the two together with a 1.5" finishing nail, following up with a nail set to ensure the metal doesn't puncture the vapor barrier on the floor or somesuch. The finishing nails aren't terribly strong, but their main role is just to hold the wood tight as the glue dries. Once the glue sets, there should be little stress on the join, and gravity will also work to keep them compressed.

I repeat this for the front and back of each cabinet, three nails per side, with the 9" cabinets getting two nails per. Finally, I go through with a moist rag and wipe away all the excess glue oozing from the joins. This isn't necessary for the back and inner sides, but on the front any excess glue would block the stain from taking, and would make the cabinets look blotchy and ugly. Can't have that. The end result of all this is a modestly elevated cabinet with more than enough room for a shoe base or quarter round if needed:

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

So, last year I did the nostalgia thing with the kids and made dewberry pie. Those of you keeping score at home will remember that while the resulting pies were all gobbled up post-haste, they were not perfect. Too sweet, too runny and in general almost, but not quite, similar to the pies I remembered from my childhood.
This year I resolved to try again, and this time Fairy Girl and Bug wanted to participate in the berry-picking (Monkey Girl had work). Nature, however, was not quite so cooperative. This past winter was so warm that the dewberries flowered three weeks earlier than in 2015, which meant the fruit matured earlier. The week they appeared to be at peak berry corresponded with almost non-stop rain. The long and short of it is that while we finally got to the roadside berry patch two weeks ahead of the time we did last year, the berries were already in decline. A bunch of them had gone past the overripe stage and gotten all shrivelly. Birds had gotten to a bunch of others. Other humans, however, had not, so we came away with six cups of dewberries. Not a massive haul by any measure, but a decent take when you take into account all the mosquitoes we fought for them (remember, it rained a lot the previous week).

The berries we had were enough for two pies. I tried a few things differently this time--I made a (sloppy) lattice over the two pies. This time around I included eggs and a significant amount of tapioca flour to solidify the pie and counter the runniness. I also cut back on the sugar by about 50 percent. The result? Good pies, but farther away from those Platonic-ideal dewberry pies of my youth than last year's attempts. The color of the pie filling, due, no doubt, to the influence of the eggs, was more yellow and hot pink than the deep, rich purple-red. The berries seemed diminished somehow, not as dominant in the cooked pies, even though they made up the bulk of the contents.

Not that it mattered. The pies got eaten quickly. I set them out to cool and came back to find slices missing almost immediately. Clearly, the only thing left to do is try again next year.
Now Playing: Various artists Putumayo Presents African GrooveChicken Ranch Central

Monday, May 09, 2016

A couple weeks ago, KTRK (ABC 13) out of Houston ran a couple of stories I helped them put together (here and here) about the infamous Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, which served as the inspiration for the Broadway musical and subsequent film, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In addition to the new segments, KTRK's producers dug up old broadcasts from 1993, the 20th anniversary of the closure. I was a young reporter in Temple at the time, so this is the first I've ever seen the broadcasts. I'm going to share them here and then offer my thoughts, two decades removed.

"Yes, we called it a bawdy house back then," is one of the more amusing lines in this piece. Everything Zindler or another reporter says "bawdy house" it sounds to me like they're saying "body house," which isn't far from the truth. They couldn't say "whorehouse" back then (and today it's iffy) but had nobody back in 1973 heard of the word "brothel" or even "bordello"? Seems to me those would be acceptable for the 10 p.m. newscast. Oh, here's John Hill again, pretending he was the guiding hand behind efforts to close the Chicken Ranch. I wish he'd have been honest about his role in the affair--these quotes of his are just embarrassing. At the 1:28 mark, we get another look at the Wagon Wheel. I'm quite surprised at how few (read: none) photographs of the Wagon Wheel I came across from the time it was open for business. Lots of history at that location--most of it unknown.
"After 20 years, Kitzman is still hostile, and wouldn't talk to me," Zindler says on the film. And you know what? That's not a Zindler exaggeration. I interviewed former district attorney Oliver Kitzman, and he did not radiate fondness for Zindler. Kitzman spoke of his interactions with Zindler and the two brothels with a kind of bemused resignation, not quite believing anyone could take Zindler's grandstanding seriously. Kitzman's comments to Zindler, including his dismissal of any organized crime involvement, closely match what he told me nearly 40 years later. It also matches information I received from other sources--including the next star witness, former assistant attorney general Herb Hancock. Hancock turned out to be the lynch pin of the entire Chicken Ranch affair, as he is the one who--without Hill's knowledge or approval--recruited Zindler to the case. To watch Hill kiss up to Zindler, praising his exposure of the Chicken Ranch, is downright cringe-worthy. Look, from all my research shows, Hill was a fundamentally honest man, but closing down the Chicken Ranch was never a priority for him as AG. For him to claim otherwise after the fact is just painful.
Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now listed on both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com for pre-order.
Title:Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little WhorehouseAuthor: Jayme Lynn BlaschkePublication Date: August 1, 2016ISBN: 978.1.46713.563.4

Friday, May 06, 2016

Watching Steve Winwood's video for "Valerie," I'm left wondering why more male singers in the '80s didn't use wind machines in their videos. Ha ha, just kidding. I'll bet Winwood cringes to this day if he watches this video. Great song, though, so it all evens out in the end.

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Back when I was an ambitious young journalist and fiction neopro, I attempted to crack the Texas Monthly market. It didn't end well, and I carry the bitter scars to this day. So it took a bit of pride-swallowing to send out cautious feelers in 2013 to see if they were interested in a piece on the 40th anniversary of the Chicken Ranch's closure. Not interested. So it's with some small degree of satisfaction that I see John Nova Lomax has referenced yours truly on Texas Monthly's blog:
The Road To The Chicken Ranch
It's a nice writeup overall, although he does perpetuate some popular misconceptions--but if it weren't for those popular misconceptions, there wouldn't have been any reason for me to write Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse, would there?
Who knows... maybe they'll come around and ask me to write a piece for the 50th anniversary of the closure. It's not that far away anymore!
Now Playing: Chicken Ranch Central

Monday, May 02, 2016

Last week, KTRK (ABC 13) out of Houston ran a couple of stories I helped them put together (here and here) about the infamous Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, which served as the inspiration for the Broadway musical and subsequent film, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In addition to the new segments, KTRK's producers dug up old broadcasts from 1993, the 20th anniversary of the closure. I was a young reporter in Temple at the time, so this is the first I've ever seen the broadcasts. I'm going to share them here and then offer my thoughts, two decades removed.

Well, Marvin Zindler certainly is his old bombastic self, isn't he? Zindler wastes no time in bringing up the old "organized crime" accusations, which, 43 years later, still remain unproven. Here's something interesting--at around the 1:40 mark, we see some rare (if poor-quality and low-contrast) footage of the oft-forgotten Wagon Wheel brothel outside of Sealy. In all honesty, until I saw this, I had never realized the individual "cabins" had been linked together in one long chain by connecting car ports. My earliest memory of the Wagon Wheel dates to maybe 1979, noticing it on a trip to Houston or somesuch, and by then the car ports were gone and the main lobby was mostly gutted.
Enter former Texas Attorney General John Hill. Wow, talk about revisionist history. Let me be clear here--Hill had nothing to do with the closing of the Chicken Ranch. I got that directly from sources within the office of Governor Dolph Briscoe and the attorney general's office as well. In fact, Hill was deliberately kept in the dark because these efforts to close the Chicken Ranch had not been approved by the AG. Note that Hill's comments are very general and vague, offering no details specific to the Chicken Ranch itself. To me, this comes across as Hill attempting to cover for himself, not letting on that he'd lost control of his own organized crime task force for the better part of 1973. I don't know about you, but were I the Texas Attorney General, that'd be a pretty embarrassing admission, even two decades later. For the record, I do think Zindler fully believed Hill was behind the so-called "anonymous tip" that started the whole affair (which wasn't all that anonymous to begin with, as we'll soon see).
Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now listed on both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com for pre-order.
Title:Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little WhorehouseAuthor: Jayme Lynn BlaschkePublication Date: August 1, 2016ISBN: 978.1.46713.563.4